Oh, How It Burns
by applythepressure
Summary: Oh, how it burns. Oh, how he burns her.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: It's been a long while, guys. But I just have had some of these lines rattling around in my brain and they won't go away. I have fallen in love with Tate and Violet from American Horror Story because they are just so tragically beautiful. I hope my writing does them justice.

I must shout out to the many wonderful authors in this fandom – your work has inspired me to try my hand at such a wonderful pair. This is a stream-of-consciousness story made up of somewhat disjointed snapshots of Tate and Violet's encounters, hopefully coalescing into them falling back into each other's arms again.

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

Violate.

What three beautifully haunting syllables.

When she says it, it burns like whiskey and smoke down her throat. Violate. What a painful word.

That's what he did to her mom. And to her. While he violated her mother physically, he violated her a lot worse. He violated her heart. Her feelings. He cut her to the core. Just thinking about it makes her twist and writhe. She claws at her skin as if she could dig her warped love for him out of her.

Oh, how it burns. Oh, how he burns her.

* * *

><p>"You must have sucked at hide-and-seek as a kid."<p>

"You're right."

"Stop spying on me."

"Sorry."

"You're not. Stop apologizing for things you're not sorry for. No one likes a liar."

"I suppose not."

"I don't like them. Liars are the worst sort of people."

"You're right."

Silence.

"Go away."

* * *

><p>He must want to get caught by her because there is no other way she can explain why he is so shitty at keeping himself hidden from her. Too bad she wants him to keep letting her see glimpses of him so her pain and anger flare white-hot like her cigarettes. And she wants nothing more than to stab them into his dimples and char the smile that mocks her dreams.<p>

Seeing him keeps the pain fresh. She needs to remember its cutting freshness to remind herself why she should not love him. It makes it easier to fuel the fire.

Unfortunately, the sadness comes crashing down later and she cries on the bathroom floor, fully aware that he is there watching her. She destroys the mirror, slashes the air with the jagged pieces, hoping to cut the invisible him. She hopes he suffocates on those shards, hopes they shed his insides so he can feel an ounce, an iota, of the anguish she feels every day.

She hopes he chokes on their failed relationship. She hopes he knows it is his fault he lost her. Now it is just up to her to remain lost to him.

* * *

><p>He is standing in the door frame of what used to be her room. It used to be his, too. She shudders at how many memories this room holds for the both of them.<p>

She pushes past him and flops down on the bed. He doesn't move.

They must have been quiet for ten minutes, but it felt like an eternity. But then she laughs softly at her concept of time.

"What's so funny?"

She answers, but it is not what he is expecting.

"Birds are quite funny. They can fly, but why would their wings have evolved to be so delicate? I could just snap them in half and they would be crippled, helplessly hobbling on the ground before falling prey to some cat. Sounds like a big fuck you from nature."

"Maybe it was so they would intensely cherish such a freedom."

She rises up from the bed to find him staring intently at her. It was the kind of look he gave her before they had sex, that one time so long ago. She remembers it vividly.

"Why are you staring at me like that?"

He snaps out of it, his eyes losing the ferocious intensity that had so engulfed them a moment before.

"I'm sorry."

"That doesn't answer my question."

He looks down, nervously scuffing the floorboards with his shoes.

"I don't know."

"Cut the shit, Tate." Then she realizes that was the first time she said his name in years. She winces at how good the flick of her tongue felt in her mouth, like it was sighing in relief of finally, finally, making that beloved movement again.

"I really don't. I guess I was just noticing how beautiful you are."

Her heart cracks ever so slightly. She manages to send him away before she breaks down.

* * *

><p>"I don't want to see you."<p>

"I know."

"You're still spying on me."

"I'm sorry. I can't help myself."

"Can't or won't?"

"Both."

The silence threatens to crush her.

"Go away."

He doesn't disappear. She sees that devilish smirk of his when he realizes what this must mean.

"It only works if you mean it."

She steals herself for what she knows must be coming next.

"So I guess this means you don't really want me to go."

She returns this comment with a smile of her own. Only hers doesn't reach her eyes.

"How do you know staying with me won't be worse than being sent away?"

She laughs at the shock registering on his face. She can be cruel, especially when it comes to him.

* * *

><p>"You're a monster."<p>

"I guess I am."

"You are, because you do without thinking about the consequences. Like an animal."

Silence.

"Or you just don't care about the consequences."

"I never thought like that. I just took what I wanted. I didn't feel like I owed the world anything, so I did as I pleased."

"Do you want me?"

"So much."

She looks at him. He looks at her with a combination of lust and longing so strong she feels like she is staring into the sun, slowly going blind but being unable – and worse, unwilling – to stop it.

"Too bad."

* * *

><p>She is lying on the bed naked because it is just too damn hot to have clothes on. She opened the window but there has not been a breeze all day. The air is heavy and sticky. She flings her arm over her face and wishes fervently that she had a fan. She knows a shower would cool her down, but she usually would rather avoid her death place and the memory of him tenderly kissing her wet hair and face as she died.<p>

"Jesus, why is it so fucking hot?"

Swinging her legs out from under her, she gets off the bed to turn on her iPod to listen to some Cobain.

"Stop checking out my ass."

"Sorry."

She hates that word. She goes to pull a loose sundress over her body because she wants to wipe the newly born shit-eating grin off his face. He doesn't even have the decency to look sheepish. It makes her want to bash his skull in.

"Have fun jerking off to that image later."

Now he looks sheepish. Serves him right.

"Don't pretend you don't think about me."

"So I won't."

"Good."

* * *

><p>Violate.<p>

It still burns her. He still burns her. Like fire in her veins, searing down her arms until her scars are red-hot with it, licking, biting, stinging. But she wonders if she still hates the burn more than she relishes it, revels in its harsh, feral rawness.

There's a fine line between pain and pleasure. She didn't need anyone to tell her that. She was never anyone who liked rainbows and butterflies. She had no delusions about love's destructive capabilities. She knew love was a close cousin to pain.

"Can I kiss you?"

"No."

More oppressive silence. She feels like she is drowning in it.

"You burn like fire, Tate. You'll burn me up."

"You would burn me just as much."

"I doubt that."

"We can burn each other. I wouldn't mind."

And she is afraid to admit that she wouldn't mind, either.

* * *

><p>AN: What do you think? Reviews would be much appreciated. I think I will continue this and see where my mind takes me.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Well, you all seem to like this so far, so I am quite flattered. Let's write some more, shall we? I will also confess that someday I want to write a novel and your reviews make me think that maybe, just maybe, my writing is good enough that I can do it. Plus I think it's funny that I am a molecular biologist who wants to write novels on the side.

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

She wouldn't mind.

But he doesn't need to know that. Let him think she would rather die than be burned by him. But then again, who says that they wouldn't be the same thing? Death or death by fire and lust. It's still death.

But, wait, she's already dead. And so is he. What's left after death?

She's not sure.

But she has a feeling she might know what it is. She wishes she didn't.

* * *

><p>"Do you feel anything?"<p>

"What do you mean?"

"Did you ever feel remorse or happiness? Do you feel bad for raping my mother?"

"I feel bad because I know that my actions are keeping you from me."

She wants to explode. Her rage is threatening to boil over. Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.

"So I'll take that as a no."

"You have already made up your mind about what I feel or don't."

"Maybe. But you can't deny that I am right."

"No, I guess I can't."

More silence. She wonders how she has not suffocated by now. The pregnant pauses that pepper their conservations make her feel like the pressure is building up in her bones, like she is at the bottom of a deep swimming pool and her ears are hurting and her head feels like it might cave in at any moment.

"You really are a monster."

"But I will always be your monster."

She scoffs at his twisted love confession. They could never do anything normally, could they? But she doesn't like normal things, does she? And she doesn't think he does, either.

"Monsters don't belong to anyone."

* * *

><p>She has locked herself in her – his – room for days now. It may have been weeks, but who cares about counting time when you have so much time you could strangle yourself with it?<p>

The other ghosts, including her parents, have left her alone. They don't want to incur her wrath since they know that she doesn't want to be disturbed.

He doesn't give a shit about her feelings, though. She knows he is always there, watching her like a person would scrutinize a sample under a microscope.

She suddenly takes her lamp, yanking the cord out of the socket so violently that it whips against her calf, and throws it at the chair she knows he always sits in. It lands with a satisfying thwack and she smirks because she has hit her mark.

"Leave before I hang you with the cord."

He does.

She wishes he didn't so she could see if he twitched when he died again.

* * *

><p>"Do you think about me?"<p>

"All the time."

"Why?"

"Because you're all I want."

"I'm all you have."

"Yes."

"Sucks to be you."

* * *

><p>It's another sweltering day, the kind of day where the windows try vainly to catch any wisp of fresh, cool air. She is back on her bed, her clothes leaving a trail behind her. Making shadow puppets on the wall with the sun at her back, she giggles.<p>

"Arf, arf," says her dog puppet. "I'm gonna eat you!" Maybe the heat has made her go mad. She chuckles because she wouldn't be surprised if she was already mad. Hell, she lost her marbles when he wrote that pathetic "I Love You" on her chalkboard and she decided that the best reaction to a murderous, psychotic ghost being in love with her was to kill herself. Now she's stuck with him in a couple thousand square feet from now to Armageddon. She can almost taste the irony and she knows she has been slowly choking on the regrets. Now all she needs is a side-helping of guilt to wash it down.

Her dog puppet devours her other hand. Just like Tate's darkness devours her. Just like his fire engulfs her. She goes still and stares at her hands.

She decides she doesn't like puppets.

* * *

><p>"Do you think about me when you do that?"<p>

"What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I mean, Violet."

"No."

"Don't lie to me. You even said you hate liars because they're horrible people."

"When did I ever say that I'm not?"

* * *

><p>"Do you miss me?"<p>

"No."

"Liar."

Silence. Always more silence.

* * *

><p>She'd been waiting for one of them to crack. He has been too calm, probably from trying to keep all his rage and hurt bottled up. She knows his time is coming, like a freight train that can't be stopped. She just hopes she doesn't crack first.<p>

She doesn't.

She just kissed Travis on the cheek for him getting something off the top shelf for her. She knows he is attractive – that much is obvious even to her, though why he went for Constance will always remain a mystery to her. She sighs because it has been so long, but she refuses to let her frustration tempt her.

"What the fuck, Violet."

She turns around to see Tate standing by the sink. His eyes are so fierce, like flashing diamonds, that she struggles to hold his gaze and not blink.

"I'm too tired for this, Tate. Get the fuck over yourself." She turns around only to be slammed into the counter, Tate's hand on her head so she is face-down on the cool granite. She shivers violently enough for him to feel it and he smirks arrogantly.

"I forbid you to touch that son of a bitch. You're mine!"

Now she is so angry, her nostrils flare, her mouth turns up into a furious snarl, and she tries to kick his legs.

"Like hell I belong to you! Are you fucking kidding me? I don't owe you anything!"

She feels his hand loosen its grip on her head and she jumps at the momentary weakness, swinging her elbow around to nail him smack in the face. He falls back, his nose most definitely broken.

Now she's shrieking like a banshee, arms flailing wildly and her hair sticking out in all directions like it is crackling with electricity. He can't help but notice how beautiful she is when she is angry. She grabs at the nice, sharp set of knives by the stove and starts throwing them at him.

"I can kiss anyone I choose." That knife misses him, lodging into the wall behind him, quivering slightly.

"I can fuck anyone I want." That knife hits his arm, leaving a razor thin line of blood that immediately starts leaching into his sweater.

"And there is nothing you can do about it." He catches the next one, letting it slice into his palm as his pupils swallow his irises.

"And if you ever lay a hand on me again, I will hurt you so bad you'll wish you never pulled that trigger." He knows she means it.

"Get the fuck out of my way." She shoves him into a wall and smacks him one last time, making sure she hits his nose for maximum pain. She runs to her room, locking the door despite knowing he will still be able to get in her room and watch, always watch.

And she cries herself to sleep when she realizes that her shiver wasn't entirely from fear or anger, but had another component that she refuses to think about.

* * *

><p>"When are you going to just let yourself fall back into my arms again?"<p>

"Never, because I don't trust you enough to catch me."

* * *

><p>"Violet, when will you stop punishing me?"<p>

"When it's enough."

"When will that be?"

"I don't know. Not for a long, long time. Maybe not ever."

"I'll wait. Forever if I have to."

"You sure you want to?"

"I have never wanted anything more."

She walks into her room and turns around to face him. She wants to see that ray of hope in his face and smash it. And she wants to burn him and him to burn her.

"We'll see."

* * *

><p>AN: Hope you enjoyed it. Reviews are always appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Alright, kiddos, I'm back at college, so updates are going to be a little less frequent and a bit more sporadic. I apologize in advance for that because as much I think Violate is more important than some stupid articles I have to read, I highly doubt my professors will agree.

Again, I must shout out to my reviewers – your comments make me smile.

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

We'll see.

Oh, yes, we will.

* * *

><p>She is in her dad's office, rummaging through all his textbooks and psychology crap. She tries to find his files since she knows he has kept them, but part of her wonders if it is better to leave well enough alone. She wonders what her dad would say to her if she walked in as a patient. What would he so meticulously write in her file? Denial. Anger. Regret. So much negative emotion that it is near impossible she hasn't exploded yet.<p>

"What are you doing?"

She turns around to see him there, sighing heavily as she tucks her hair behind her ear.

"What does it look like?"

"Are you looking for my file?"

"I'm not really sure."

"Would you read it if you found it?"

"I don't know."

The silence presses upon her once more.

"If I did read it, there is nothing in there that would make this whole thing more or less fucked up anyway."

Suddenly she is so unbelievably tired. She is just so, so tired of him, of this house, of everything she has known since moving to Los Angeles. Her life in Boston might as well have been a dream. And now she is dead, stuck in a house filled with even more fantastically fucked up people, forced to forever remain a teenager complete with all the angst and hormones that comes with those shitty eight years of existence.

"I'm sorry."

"Please stop saying that." Her voice cracks. "I don't think I can bear it."

"Violet…"

"I told you not to say sorry unless you feel it. But you can't feel anything."

"I know."

"So you can never truly be sorry."

"Technically."

"I hate you."

"Do you?"

She looks at him. Does she? Does she really, truly hate him, deep down in her bones and gut? Or is it a surface hatred that will burn off when his fire overwhelms it? She does not know and she does not want to find out. Because if she knew the answer, what would it say about her?

"Do you hate me?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"Well, I've made you suffer. Lots of people think that's a good enough reason for hating someone."

"I could never hate you, Violet."

"You should."

* * *

><p>Her parents are off playing with their perpetual bundle of joy in the backyard, making funny faces and laughing when he coos confusedly back up at them. Violet is thankful to her brother for bringing her parents' broken marriage at least a little back together. She feels bad for him, though – doomed forever to remain an infant, unable to form his own identity and consciousness, doomed forever to eat, gurgle, sleep, and shit. At least she can think and imagine and dream. Not that she wants to because he usually appears wherever she does any of those things.<p>

Her dreams used to be of them on the beach, kissing and touching and going farther. They used to be of the flower he painted black. She smirks at the irony – a black rose to symbolize their blackened, poisoned relationship. How poetic. He'd appreciate it.

She doesn't want to think of the dreams she has now.

* * *

><p>"Why do you torture yourself, Violet? Aren't you tired of it?"<p>

Oh, yes, she's tired of it. She is so tired it is a miracle she hasn't collapsed. If she wasn't already dead, she's positive she would have died of emotional exhaustion. Her pain has not ebbed, but her anger to deal with it has atrophied. She needs him to light its fire again so she can continue on. One step in front of the other. One more day. One more hour. One more endless, lonely night.

"Yes, Tate, I am."

"Then just stop. Stop doing this to yourself."

He hugs himself, like he is trying to protect himself from catching her pain. Like her anguish is a contagion, threatening to consume the life all around it. Only this time there is no life to take, so what's left for the hungry monster of her suffering?

"I can't. Because I need to hurt. I need to be angry at you. And my pain is your pain, so I make sure you pay for what you did to me. To my mother. To us."

And what you still do to me. Constantly. I can't forgive you for the long nights I now must spend alone.

"Please don't do this. You're destroying yourself."

And that's it. The fire ignites. Her anger is rekindled and she grabs onto it like a drowning sailor would grab a lifeline.

"I'm destroying myself? Are you fucking kidding me, Tate? YOU destroyed me when you raped my own mother and knocked her up with the goddamn Antichrist! YOU killed me when you confessed you loved me after I just found out that you were shot full of bullets because you murdered innocent kids for no reason! And I'm responsible for that?"

Her eyes blaze.

"You keep destroying me every fucking day, Tate. And you want to know why? Because I can't allow myself to love you after knowing what you did. Because who would I be if I loved the boy who raped and killed my mother, who set a man on fire, and who murdered upwards of fifteen people? Who can forgive all those horrible things?"

He starts to cry.

"I torture myself because I refuse to forgive. I can't. Not now. I don't know if I ever will be able to. Because if I do, that makes me no better than you. I will not sacrifice my feelings and my humanity even if doing so allows me to be with you. I will not stoop that low."

She turns her back to him.

"Now get out of my sight."

* * *

><p>She is on the bed dressed in a nightshirt trying to sleep, but failing miserably because she just can't get comfortable. She tosses and turns – on her side, then onto her stomach, then around onto her back – but she knows it's hopeless. She almost doesn't realize her fingers creeping lower until they are suddenly there. But before she lets go, she scans the room, glancing over to the chair that she knows he must be in.<p>

"I know you're here."

"I am."

"Do you know what I was about to do?"

"Yes." He licks his lips, but she does not see.

"Would you have jerked off to it later?"

"Yes."

She pauses to get him riled up with anticipation.

"I guess I'm just not in the mood anymore."

"It's your decision."

But she knows how disappointed he is. It makes her smile.

"You need to stop watching me try to get off. I can't when you're around. Now go away."

He does because he must. She wonders what fantasies he is conjuring up in the basement with just his hand. She refuses to give him any more memories like those.

When she comes undone, she starts crying.

* * *

><p>It's hot again. She curses the monotonous Los Angeles weather. Not even the lemonade Moira made her is helping her cool off. Lounging on a reclining beach chair, she can look up to see the entire backside of the house. And of course, she sees him staring out at her from a window.<p>

She ignores him. She hopes the image of her yellow striped bikini and heart-shaped sunglasses gets seared into his retinas.

* * *

><p>He is still burning her. She can feel it like a ubiquitous itch, spreading from her toes to the very tip of her scalp. She scratches at her scars until they bleed red-hot again.<p>

She mopes the entire day, day after day, fluttering from one room to the next, always seeing his sweater and blond hair in the corner of her eye.

This is what going crazy must feel like. Maybe she'll start frothing at the mouth next. Then her eyes will roll back in her head and she'll scream until she is hoarse. At this point, maybe finally snapping and slipping into oblivion will be the best for her. Like a permanent vacation from the continuous anxiety and hurt she cannot escape from. An oasis in the middle of a dying earth.

He sees her staring into space and he knows she is gone right now. He wishes he knows where she went. He wonders if there is a place for him there. With her.

He hopes there is.

* * *

><p>AN: Reviews are always appreciated! Hope you enjoyed reading!


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Why hello, everyone! I am so flattered by the wonderful response I've gotten to this story. I will try to update as much as I can, but I got honors, presentations, and interviews all over April, so just be aware that my schedule is going to be busy.

And of course, I do not own "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" by Nirvana or have any claim over the lyrics.

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

He hopes there is. Because if there isn't, he won't know what to do with himself.

What could he do anyway?

* * *

><p>She is playing with Beau in the attic, rolling his little red ball back and forth, back and forth. The monotony of the game soothes her. What wouldn't she give to have that stability and childlike bliss that Beau has? She wishes her world only consisted of that little red ball, that her only concern was that it would be rolled back to her. What an immense comfort would it be to definitively, absolutely know that her ball, her whole world, would always be returned to her.<p>

She wishes she could shrink down her world so that there could be no room for him in it, ceaselessly yearning for a world only big enough for her and that little red ball.

* * *

><p>"Want to play Scrabble with me?"<p>

"I've got nothing better to do."

He excitedly bounces up to her room while she halfheartedly trudges behind. He is already setting up the board by the time she opens the door. She silently laughs at his enthusiasm, but she guesses it is probably because he is just so happy she is tolerating his presence for once.

"Alright, pick your letters."

She dumps out all the tiles she needs only to find she is stuck with a shitty mix of way too many consonants.

"Jesus, can I buy a vowel?"

"Bad luck, huh?"

"You could say that."

They start playing with Tate putting down UNIFY first.

Violet starts coughing at the word because its connotations are so strong in the air that she might as well inhaled and choked on them.

"You alright?"

"I'm fine."

She puts down LYING through the I. How symbolic. The lies slice the unification right down the middle into two bloody halves.

He sucks in a sharp breath, but it's like she forgot how to breathe. Not that it matters for either of them because the dead don't need air.

"Violet…"

"What?"

He looks like he wants to say something – he always wants to say something because he has so many things he wants and needs to tell her – but he stops himself instead.

"Never mind."

"Okay."

They go back to playing in silence. She wonders if Scrabble is a manifestation of their battle strategies. What will be the next move? How will she counter it? How many bruises and gashes can they take before they go down? How many words dripping with meaning, sighs, tears, and razor blades can they form on the board, stare at, and try not to think about until they snap?

He places LUST through her L. Her heart stops. Did the lies overcome the lust? Will they ever?

Finally some vowels.

TRUST off of the T.

"Your move, Tate."

TAINT off of the other T. She swears she can still see that word on her chalkboard.

CLEAVE through the A. A word that cuts and clings at the same time. Just like they do to each other.

She gets up suddenly, upsetting the board. Tate looks at her, puzzled at her sudden movement since she had been so still until now.

"Violet? Are you alright?" He knows she's not and she knows he knows why.

"Isn't that a loaded question?"

"It is. It just feels like the right one to ask you right now."

"Do you even want to know or are you just being courteous?"

"I'm always here for you."

"I know."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

What do I say, Tate? The words on the board say it all for me. Our relationship is nothing but a mess of lies, lust, and tainted memories. Don't pretend that you don't know that, too.

"Not particularly."

"Whatever you want."

"Even though it's not what you want."

He looks at her so hard she thought he could pressurize her into diamond.

"No, it's not what I want."

"I don't care what you want."

"I know."

The silence is slowly crystallizing her, molding her pain into shards that pierce her insides and make her bleed her feelings into a pathetic puddle at his feet.

"Did I win the game?"

"I don't know."

"I guess it doesn't matter."

Oh, but it does matter. It matters so, so much.

* * *

><p>She is thinking about his hands and where they have been. She wonders about where she would like his mouth to trace warm circles on her skin.<p>

"Just let me, Violet."

She can hear the restraint in his voice. So palpable is the tension in the room that she is amazed they are not both crushed by it.

"I can't, Tate."

"Just let me touch you."

"No."

"Please, Violet."

"It is so sweet to hear you beg." He whimpers at her callous comment.

"Please, Violet, I'll do anything you want."

"Anything?"

"Yes. Anything."

"Go away."

* * *

><p>She goes to get a glass of water from the kitchen. Moira is cooking something on the stove. The smell is seeping throughout the kitchen.<p>

"Miss Violet, do you need anything?"

"No, Moira, I'm good. Thanks."

"Alright, Miss Violet, just watch the glass on your way out."

"What glass?"

And then she sees the jagged edges glinting off the floor by the entrance to the backyard. A million glimmering pieces reflecting the light and her image all over the walls.

"Moira, what happened?"

"I'm not sure."

"Don't lie to me. I'm a big girl, I can handle it."

"Tate did it."

"Of course, why am I not surprised?"

"He did it because of you."

"It's not my fault he breaks shit when he is angry. Though I am sorry he makes more work for you."

"You may want to go a bit easier on him."

"Why should I? He doesn't deserve it."

"He loves you."

She looks at Moira with immense hopelessness in her eyes. Moira averts her gaze and Violet steps gingerly through the maze made by the insane genius that is Tate's anger.

"I know. That only makes it worse."

* * *

><p>She is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and softly singing the lyrics of all her favorite songs. Maybe if she fills her head with other people's problems, she'll finally be distracted from her own.<p>

His voice joins hers, weaving a sweet, sad melody.

"My girl, my girl, where will you go?"

"I'm going where the cold wind blows."

"In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don't ever shine."

"I would shiver the whole night through."

* * *

><p>She is busy reading again. As she lies on her stomach with her head propped up by her hands, she feels a shadow fall on her back. And she already knows it's him.<p>

"Whatcha reading?"

"Just some poetry."

"Can I see?"

She hands it to him. He reads a page or two, frowning at the words before handing it back to her.

"I don't recognize who this is."

"That's because it's me."

"You wrote this?"

"Yeah, I did."

"When?"

"In Boston when shit had royally hit the fan."

"Do you still write in it?"

"Sometimes."

"What do you write about?"

"I'm sure you can guess, Tate. Not exactly like my life – or death – has been fluffy kittens and sparkly rainbows since I came to LA."

He remains silent. Sometimes she thinks their silences say so much more than their words.

"And in answer to your questions, yes, I write about you. No, you wouldn't like it. No, you can't read it."

"I wasn't going to ask."

"Please, it was written all over your face."

She snaps the book shut and picks up her towel to go inside. He watches her as she goes back into the house, wishing desperately that he could take that book, crawl back into her mind, and find a way to make her love him again.

* * *

><p>She hears him singing Nirvana.<p>

"My girl, my girl, don't lie to me, tell me where did you sleep last night?"

"I slept alone in my bed, Tate." He doesn't startle like she thought he would, but she figures that he has an uncanny ability to know her whereabouts at all times.

"Because you forced me to sleep alone. You forced me to be alone."

"I know, my poor, sweet girl. I know."

"Go away."

She starts crying uncontrollably.

Is she still his girl? Does she want to be? Did she ever stop?

She curls into a ball on the floor, her Ipod still whispering Cobain into her ears.

* * *

><p>AN: Hope you enjoyed! Reviews are always appreciated!


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: And I'm back! I'm so happy everyone likes this story. I always think when I upload a new chapter, it will be the chapter when everyone will tell me it stinks. So every time I get an overwhelmingly positive response, I am shocked that everyone likes it. So thank you to all my reviewers – reading your kind words always makes me happy.

And The Walking Reedus promoted my story! I'm flattered you think so highly of my writing. Thank you!

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

His words still slither into her ears as she lies on the floor. She doesn't think she can take it anymore, so she forces herself to get off the floor to fling her iPod across the room. It smacks into the wall with a sickening thud and Kurt is abruptly cut off, the silence blooming to take his place. She drags herself to her bed and collapses into her covers, trying not to dry heave and to keep the looming panic attack at bay. Breathe, she tells herself.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

"I know, my poor, sweet girl."

She is sure he can hear her howling all the way from the basement.

* * *

><p>"What were you thinking when you saw me looking at you when you were decorating the tree?"<p>

"That you were the first and last person I wanted to see."

"How could I have been both?"

"I'm sure you can figure that out for yourself."

* * *

><p>She is singing again. He wonders if her song is about him and appears in her room so he can hear her better.<p>

He sees her standing in the middle of the room, eyes closed, tears trickling down her face. Her voice is raw and powerful just like her spirit which he admires so much. She has the strength that he always wished he had for her.

"Your voice is great."

She stops abruptly. He now wishes he didn't speak because the silent void left in the now heavy air cannot compare to her voice.

"Thanks, I guess. I'm by no means trained."

"That's good. That means your voice is unconstrained by what other people think you should sound like."

"If I only was as free as you say my voice is."

* * *

><p>Her face is reflected in the glass, throwing the dark circles under her eyes into sharp relief. She never was one to take special interest in her appearance since she saw such attention as vain and superficial. However, her face startles her with the feral glint in her eyes and her mouth in a snarl.<p>

It's like seeing him.

Is she turning into the monster she swore she would never become?

Now it's her punching the window and being the target of Moira's frustration.

* * *

><p>She can hear her parents having sex upstairs and it makes her uncomfortable, so she goes outside. Sitting on the ledge with a cancer stick in her mouth, she leans back against the wall and exhales her smoke through her nose so she looks like an angry bull, about to charge against the antagonizing piece of red dangled in front of its face. Only her red is a boy with blond hair and dark eyes and a penchant for murder and blood and guns.<p>

She wonders what sex would be like with him again now that she knows all his dirty secrets. Would it be animalistic? Would she hurt him? Her face blushes with arousal and anger, battling for dominance on her cheeks.

"Whatcha thinking about?"

"Sex."

His eyes go hungry and she recognizes the ferociousness on his face.

"Really, now?"

"I heard my parents doing it."

"And?"

She smirks because she is feeling oddly playful. Why not? She might as well have a little fun. It's too easy.

"I thought about what I would do to you if you ever came close enough again."

He leans forward, the lust darkening his features and lowering his voice.

"Up for sharing?"

She hops off the ledge, brushing off her dress and not caring if he saw her underwear.

"I'd rather let you imagine."

* * *

><p>The water running down her face is unfortunately not as refreshing as she had hoped for. She scrubs at her arms and legs with her loofah, rubbing her skin until it is red. Her hair hangs limply as she shampoos it, sighing as her fingers work on her scalp. When she is done, she steps out of the tub and wraps a towel around herself before she wipes the mirror clear of steam.<p>

"Pervert."

He shows himself, sporting an all too wide grin.

"Stop watching me in the shower."

"What if I say I won't?"

She whips around, surprised that he challenged her. But then she reveals a sinister grin that is all her own, matching his show of white, perfect teeth.

"You're gonna regret it."

* * *

><p>"Wanna play cards?"<p>

"Sure."

He gets up to get the deck while she watches him. And suddenly she finds herself fascinated by the way he moves. He is like a cat, muscles coiled, ready to spring at a moment's notice. Every move is calculated for maximum efficiency. However, he still manages to infuse grace and dexterity into his actions.

So this is how a killer moves.

He catches her staring. He smiles and she knows he has misinterpreted the meaning behind her look.

"What do you want to play?"

"How about poker?"

"Texas Hold 'em okay?"

"Yeah."

"What do you want to use to bet?"

"Secrets."

"You know all of mine, Violet."

"Do I?" She gives him a hard look and he breaks her gaze, picking at a thread on his shoes.

"It's me that does not know all of your secrets." He sounds resentful and she bristles.

"You have no right to know any of them anymore. So don't look so betrayed."

He can't help it. He wants to know all of them. After what they had, he still feels as if he deserves to know them.

"Fine, let's play."

He deals and Violet gets the queen of hearts and five of clubs. A relatively mediocre hand, but she won't fold just yet. The flop is not favorable. He steels his poker face and bets a secret. She decides to bluff and raises him two secrets. Intrigued, he takes the bait.

The turn gives Violet a pair of fives. He checks as does she.

The river is the ace of hearts. How fucking ironic.

They check and turn their hands. He beats her with a pair of aces. She looks at his other card. And he has the king of hearts. The king to her queen.

The insinuations are enough to make her retch bile.

"You lose this round. Confess five secrets."

"I slept with a teddy bear until I was twelve because I was convinced he scared away the monsters under the bed." She cocks her head.

"What?"

"I could have used him when we moved to this house." To scare away all the monsters under the bed. To scare away the monster that was in her bed.

"And I hate my mom's cooking even though I always pretend to like it. I just don't have the heart to tell her that since she ate brains, everything has been just a little too bloody for my taste. Another secret is that I had a huge crush on a guy in second grade and I didn't know how to deal with it because I hated feeling afraid of something, so I always pushed him around on the playground. I rough-housed with him too hard one day and broke his nose when I tickled him and he fell off the monkey bars."

Tate chuckled.

"You still got two left."

"I know, relax. One night in Boston, instead of going to my friend's house like I told my parents, I went over to the highway bridge and just stood there, thinking about jumping into the traffic below."

She pauses. "It was particularly bad between my parents then. I thought that if I did something drastic, they would remember they had a daughter. I was so sick of being ignored while they pretended to try to work out all their problems."

He places his hand over hers and she, to her surprise, lets him. The coldness of his thumb ring feels foreign against the heat of her skin.

"One more."

"Sometimes I wish we had never met."

He recoils, his face but a painting of sadness and pain caused by her words. But then he remembers what she said.

"Only sometimes?"

"Only sometimes."

* * *

><p>AN: Hope you enjoyed. Reviews are always appreciated.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: And another installment. Hope you are all enjoying reading this as much as I am writing it. I continue to give my thanks to my reviewers. Both The Walking Reedus and Captivation have recommended my story! They are wonderful authors themselves and you all must check out their work.

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

"Do you miss me?"

"Only sometimes."

She doesn't want to admit it is actually most of time. Maybe even all of the time. But he doesn't need to know that. He doesn't deserve to know that. Because knowing that will make him think he has a chance. And knowing that will bring him out of the punishment she has been so successfully imposing upon him. He needs to be punished. He deserves to be punished. And she still intends on making him pay.

Maybe the time will come where she will change her mind. She doesn't think she will. Though there are times where she hates to admit that she is tempted by his lethal smile.

* * *

><p>She is looking at the old photos that Tate showed her in the attic. She turns the one of Nora, Charles, and Thaddeus over and over in her hands. She is not fond of Charles or Thaddeus because Charles hits the ether too hard and Thaddeus would love to eat her for lunch. She finds Nora a bit of an arrogant bitch, but she does pity her for her sad lack of understanding of the world she now lives in. She pities her because she can never transcend past reputations, money, and superficial bullshit to understand what really matters in life.<p>

What does really matter?

Family?

Violet wasn't so sure because her family had dissolved into a splintered mess and she mainly just wanted to get the hell away from her parents so she could do her own thing. She saw her family as weak because they couldn't grow some balls and face the facts. They had wanted to pretend like they were the perfect picture of a family, that everything was butterflies and rainbows instead of dead babies and violent mistrust. She hated weakness; fearlessness was the trait she was the most proud of and the fact that neither of her parents had it had made her loathe them. She wasn't afraid to stare problems in the face and deal with them. Now they are much better, but she still wonders how many of the wounds have actually healed.

Friends?

She did not have any at Westfield because all of them were too into mainstream music, designer labels, and tanning to understand her. They didn't have the depth or effort, she didn't have the energy or time to invest. Of the living she knows, Constance makes her want to throw up and Larry is out of touch, in jail pining after the frigid bitch. Even if he wasn't, she wouldn't want to be anywhere near him because he just gives her the creeps with his cold abandonment of his family and his sinister face. The ghosts in the house aren't exactly people she wants to be friends with, either. Chad and Patrick are constantly snipping at each other and she doesn't think she can handle their passive aggressiveness for very long. Hanging out with your father's mistress who is almost the same age as you and who loves stabbing people multiple times isn't exactly on her to-do list. There were obvious reasons she didn't want to get all buddy-buddy with the people who tried to kill her and her mom. The nurses are too moody. Lorraine and her girls are hardly ever around and Violet can't stomach the smell of burnt hair and flesh. She cannot bear to be near Hugo. Travis and Moira are really the only ones she could deal with for extended periods of time. But even Travis's shallowness sometimes overtakes his kindness and Moira's calm advice – which is transparently about Tate – makes her want to throw things.

Love?

Look where that got her. Look where that got her mom. Because of love, they are now stuck eternally in a house with the men that broke their hearts. She wishes love did not matter at all because she knows, deep down inside, it matters the most.

* * *

><p>"What are you thinking about?"<p>

"Nothing in particular."

"C'mon, Vi, let me inside your head."

"Why, so you can fuck it up even more?"

He shrinks back, startled at her sudden vehemence.

"I didn't mean any harm. I was only kidding."

"You're incapable of not meaning harm, Tate. That is just what you do."

His eyes start welling up and she knows he is about to cry. And suddenly she has no patience for his tears.

"Stop your sniveling." Her tone is cold like ice and he whips his head up, snot glistening on his cuff from when he rubbed it against his nose.

"I'm sorry."

And now she explodes.

"I don't fucking care, Tate! You don't mean it! You never did! I can't trust anything that comes out of your mouth. You lie like a serpent."

She stands up.

"Did you even mean it when you said you loved me?"

She knows he meant it. She is just so angry, so desperate to get him riled up that she says it anyway.

His eyes go big and he scrambles to his feet as well, reaching for her hands.

"Of course, Vi! I meant that with every fiber of my being. I still do."

"Apparently not enough to not rape my mother."

"That was before you changed me, Violet. You're the only goodness, the only light in the darkness that I've known. You must realize that." His eyes are pleading with hers to understand.

She says nothing. She doesn't know if she is able to understand. Or if she wants to.

"I love you. I love you so much sometimes I can't think straight."

"You never thought straight to begin with."

* * *

><p>Her baby brother has just been put down for his nap and her parents are enjoying a romantic picnic in the backyard. Moira is off cleaning and the rest of the ghosts are either fucking, fighting, or crying over how they wish they weren't dead. Violet laughs at the predictability.<p>

"What's so funny?"

"You. Me. Us. Everyone in this house."

"What do you mean?"

"The monotony of our daily lives. Or should I say deaths?"

"Too much crazy shit happened here for this house to be monotonous."

"A spontaneous house with monotonous ghosts. What a paradox."

"Do you want us to be more spontaneous?"

"I guess so. Unpredictability can be fun, but dangerous." Especially since he is the embodiment of unpredictability and most certainly dangerous.

He quickly leans over and brushes her hair behind her ear, letting his breath tickle the cartilage. He kisses her cheek before she even knows what happened.

She looks at him, stunned at his audacity.

"What? You said you wanted to be more spontaneous."

He gets up with a sly grin on his face and walks out of her room.

And she knows that he has won this particular interaction in their war. She can still feel the fire that his lips branded into her cheek. Touching it, she is jolted by the flood of memories that comes back to her. His dark eyes and how they looked during sex. The chill that his kisses always inevitably sent down her spine. The beach. She feels tingly in all the wrong places.

When she starts touching herself, she thinks about their first time. She has his smile on her mind when she comes with a jerk.

She resolves that she will not let him win again.

* * *

><p>"I got this for you."<p>

"Thanks."

It's a white rose this time, not black.

* * *

><p>This time, the day is unusually cold for LA and Violet wishes that the leaves would change accordingly. She really missed the fall in Boston when she would try to predict which trees on the street would turn their leaves red, yellow, orange, or brown. She is burrowed under her covers, reading an old copy of <em>Wuthering Heights<em> with a flashlight. Catherine and Heathcliff were one of her favorite couples, but she tried not to dwell on why.

The covers are ripped off from over her head, leaving her feeling very exposed. He looks at her with that smile that so often lingers in her fantasies.

"What's up?"

She sighs exasperatedly.

"Give me the covers back, I'm cold."

He remakes her book nook and climbs in her bed to lay down beside her.

"What are you reading?"

"_Wuthering Heights_. A tragic love story."

As if they don't have enough of those in this house.

"Mind if I join you?"

She shrugs. He takes it as a yes, scooting closer to her so that their bodies are just barely touching.

They read just like that for the rest of the afternoon, engrossed in Catherine, Heathcliff, Linton, bitterness, and longing.

* * *

><p>AN: Hope you enjoyed! Reviews are always appreciated.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Oh, wow! All of you are wonderful. Thank you for your reviews – they really do make my (and any author's) day.

You must check out Gray Glube, ScarlettWoman710, ohyellowbird, Tjoek, Kristybelle, Captivation, and The Walking Reedus. All of them beautifully capture Violate and you must read everything by them (as I have done multiple times).

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

It becomes somewhat of a ritual for them.

Next it's _Jane Eyre_.

And then she introduces him to Milton.

He shows her Yeats and Byron.

After that, it's the _Inferno_.

She wants him to see what circle he would be in. Then again, maybe she belongs in one, too.

How different is hellfire from his own fire? How different would the burning feel? She thinks hellfire would be preferable to the scorch he leaves behind on her heart, the agony in her mind, and the insatiable ache throughout her body.

* * *

><p>"Hey."<p>

"Hey."

They just sit there in her room, her on the computer and him in the chair, watching her. She finds a funny video and shows it to him. His face cracks up into laughter. She realizes that she hardly ever hears him laugh and she likes the sound.

"You need to laugh more often. It suits you."

He looks at her with the most brilliant smile. She can feel the shock registering in her face because she never thought that such a dark monster would be able to display something so full of light.

"You're the only one that can make me laugh like that."

* * *

><p>Sometimes she likes to stay up the entire night to watch the inky black of night take over the sun and then gradually recede as the sun comes back up. It reminds her of the ebb and flow of time. She can't help but feel like she is like the Tucks from her favorite childhood book. She has fallen off the wheel of time as they did, stuck in the stagnant state of immortality. Because in a way, she was immortal. She was dead, but she couldn't move on; she was captive in a warped, hellish limbo and fated to stay there until whoever was in charge – if anyone was – had enough of her misery and let her go.<p>

She knows he is there because he always is.

"I know you're there."

Silence greets her response, but she knows better. Her sigh is a long, light one as she shifts on her bed to face where she knows he is sitting.

"Don't make me throw my lamp at you again."

He materializes in her chair as she expected.

"Come on, watch the sunrise with me. It's starting."

He gets up without a word and comes to sit down on the bed beside her. He goes to hold her hand, but she shifts her arm away from his. He doesn't cry, but she knows his eyes are watery because of her silent rejection. To compensate, she briefly leans her head on his shoulder when the sky is sporting its first lines of pink and orange. They say nothing to each other as the sun overtakes the night, but she is content and so is he.

* * *

><p>She is sitting with Chad in the backyard, drinking a nice full glass of wine while watching the clouds slowly meander across the sky. She does not particularly like Chad because he can be a bit of a drama queen and she hasn't forgotten that he wanted to take her mom's babies, but she sympathizes with him. She knows all too well how the ones you love can hurt you the most.<p>

"Is Pat still being an asshole?"

A deep, heavy sigh answers her question.

"I'm sorry."

"Are you really?"

"Don't get snippy with me."

He swirls his wine and takes a hearty gulp.

"Sorry, Violet. I didn't mean to take my frustration out on you."

"It's alright."

She points out that one of the clouds looks like a rabbit.

"Let's not remind me about all the sex I'm not getting."

"Geez, Chad, no wonder you're so bitchy."

"You're not exactly a ray of sunshine yourself, missy."

"And what do you mean by that?"

"You're horny for that little psychopath of yours, but you're too proud and stubborn to fuck him again and you won't screw anyone else. He still loves you so much that he wouldn't think of touching any other woman in the house. You're both wound as tight as a coil."

"Shut up."

"Hit a nerve?"

More like the truth.

"It's none of your business."

"Please, it is when I can't get any sleep with your Norman Bates Jr. making mincemeat out of the Tiffany light fixtures at three in the morning."

She doesn't tell him that it was her that time.

"You know why I can't go back to him."

"Honey, sex and love are not the same thing. Having sex with your little monster doesn't automatically mean you love him again or that you take him back. Just think about it as a stress reliever and then you can go right back to whatever fucked up game you're playing with him."

"It's not that simple."

He turns to look her straight in the eyes.

"You think it's complicated, but you're only making it that way so you don't have to make a hard decision."

She looks down at her glass of wine. She's going to need another one.

"For once, Violet, fuck the consequences. You'll feel the better for it."

* * *

><p>She has been mulling over what Chad said when he comes into the kitchen. She was cutting up some vegetables and cheese to bring out to her little nest of blankets and cushions she made in the gazebo.<p>

"What are you doing?"

"Getting a snack."

He steals a cucumber slice from her plate and pops it in his mouth, chewing noisily so she can hear the proof of his thievery.

"Hey!"

She whacks him playfully on the arm and his hand swiftly catches hers around the wrist. Their eyes lock and instantly, the mood in the room changes. The air feels colder and hotter at the same time, her stomach is tied in knots, and his touch on her wrist is sparking with electricity. She already knows it is futile to try and wiggle out of his grasp. His eyes have completely changed and she knows why.

"What are you going to do?"

He stares harder at her and licks his lips.

"Nothing, if that is what you want."

"Is that what you want?"

"No."

She trembles at the undertones of lust and longing in his voice.

"Is that what you want?"

"I don't know."

He can tell she is wavering, the battle between the rational mind and the body's carnal urges violently waging for the upper hand. So he does as he would in any situation with her – seize the opportunity to break down her defenses, bit by bit, so she will love him again.

"Let me persuade you."

And he kisses her. And she lets him.

She might have even kissed back.

She knows she kissed him back.

At this moment, she didn't care that she would beat herself up over it later, probably cry for hours over this betrayal, and vow to rebuild her defenses. At this moment, she didn't care about anything other than how fucking wonderful his mouth felt against hers.

But of course, realization had to crash down and screw up everything. She heard the door open and she immediately pushed him away as quickly as she could, breathing hard to regain control over her throbbing heart and the tingle of excitement that shot through her body.

They looked at each other for what seemed like an eternity.

"This changes nothing."

She runs as fast as her wobbly legs could carry her to the gazebo and collapses onto her blankets. It doesn't take very long until the sobs start ripping through her lungs.

Because both of them know that that kiss changes everything.

* * *

><p>AN: The long-awaited kiss! Reviews are always loved.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Aw, shucks, all of you are too good to me. I am so happy you are enjoying the story. And they kissed! Let's see what happens next!

And thank you to all my reviewers. You make me smile.

And read The Curve of Her Lips. Just do it and you'll thank me later.

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

That kiss changes everything now.

She knows it and hates it.

He knows it and loves it.

Well, fuck.

* * *

><p>She has been holing up in the attic for days now. He knows why and he knows he shouldn't bother her, but he can't help it. He has this obsessive need to see her that cannot be overpowered by the rational thought that he might push her away if he pushes too hard too soon. But he climbs the stairs the old fashioned way so she knows he is coming. The least he can do is not sneak up on her while she is trying to process that, after years of making herself believe that she loathed him, she played tonsil hockey with him and really, <em>really<em> enjoyed it.

He knows she enjoyed it because she kissed him back. Hard. Like he was a delicious wine and she was trying to drink every drop, exploring every hot crevice and cranny of his mouth to suck him dry. Like he was an oasis in the middle of a desert and she was a traveler dying of thirst, hungrily slurping the reviving water that is, at that moment, more precious and welcome to her than gold or jewels. Like he was a prize denied to her for so long that when she finally had him in her grasp, the flood built by years of anticipation roared forth in a swell of destructive and raging desire.

And that knowledge made him insanely giddy because now he knows without a doubt that she still wants him. Because kisses like that – hot, heavy, life-consuming, dizzying – don't lie. Now he knows that anything she says about hating him, about never wanting to see or touch him again is complete and utter bullshit no matter how hard she tries to convince either of them otherwise. Actions speak louder than words. And she sent a message loud and clear.

He knows that she knows that she betrayed herself. He knows that she knows he has her. He knows that she hates that she willingly gave him such an advantage. He knows she knows that he is going to use it against her to get what he wants most – her, all of her, back in his arms, in his mouth, on his lap, around his dick. Oh, and how he plans on using it.

But he knows she is going to put up one hell of a fight.

He finds her playing with Beau, her back turned to him.

"How long are you going to keep hiding from me?"

She doesn't answer him, but he can tell she heard him when she rolls the ball a bit more forcefully than intended, causing it to swerve away from Beau. He grunts his displeasure and follows it, leaving the two of them alone.

"Ignoring me isn't going to work either, Violet."

"I can try, can't I?"

She gets up slowly and turns to him. Her eyes blaze with both anger and something else.

"Violet…"

She suddenly tries to bolt past him, but he is too quick and his arm shoots out like a whip, catching her wrist again. The familiarity of this position as well as its implications send a sharp cascade of fear through her face while the memories turn his eyes black and his voice husky and low.

"You can't run from me anymore."

She won't look in his face, using her hair as a shield as she tries desperately to free herself. She knows it is useless to fight against his grip of iron, but she must try. She can't bear to think of the consequences if she stopped fighting.

"Let go of me!"

She struggles violently against him, trying to claw his face with her other hand, but he catches that one, too.

"Stop, Vi, please."

She starts crying, the broken sounds echoing off the dusty walls.

"I can't. I won't."

But her movements lose their ferocity and she slumps down to the floor, drained and exhausted. He kneels down in front of her, still holding onto her wrists in case she tries anything.

"Stop fighting this, Vi. Stop fighting us."

He lets go of one of her wrists to caress her face.

"Please, Vi."

She falls into his chest, leaning against him as her tears make splotches on his sweater. They just stay there like that for a long time and when he finally dares to stand up because his legs can no longer take the cramping, he gathers her sleeping form gently into his arms.

When she wakes up in her room hours later, she finds another rose on her nightstand.

This time, it's red.

* * *

><p>She is playing with her baby brother in the backyard because her parents are inside watching a movie. She rolled her eyes at the date cliché, but she was secretly happy that her parents were slowly, but surely, mending some of the wounds that got them stuck in this house in the first place.<p>

She blew a raspberry on his stomach and tickled his sides, making him squeal with glee and surprise. She smiles down at him.

"Hey there, little fella. Aren't you a good little boy?"

She tried not to think about his demon twin living next door with the grandmother from hell feeding God-knows-what horrible, racist things into his head. Because she knows one thing for sure – that little boy was anything but good.

Just like his father.

"He's a cute little guy."

He squats down next to her, looking at her baby brother as if he wanted to ask him a question.

"He is."

And before she could stop him, Tate picks him up and cradles him in his arms. She was sure that he would start crying as soon as he touched him, but to her surprise, her brother just yawned and snuggled into his mustard yellow sweater after tightly wrapping his tiny hand around Tate's finger. Her chest got tight and she felt like she couldn't breathe.

"Did you ever want kids?"

With me? She knew that was the unspoken question.

"I never thought about it."

Yes. I did. Before I found out you were dead and a murderer and raped my mother. Before we got so fucked up and lost.

"I've made you upset."

"You always find a way to do that."

He sets her brother back down on the blanket.

"You wanna play Uno or something later?"

"Maybe."

"Okay." He doesn't want to leave her, but he doesn't want to push her away. He disappears to her room, watching her out of the window until the sun goes down.

She tries to hold her tears back as she conjures up all the fantasies of what could have been and mourns that they can never be.

* * *

><p>After their interaction with her baby brother, she has been hiding from him again. This time, she has been staying in her room, blasting music so loud he is positive his ear drums ruptured. Moira has yelled at her multiple times to turn that wretched noise down, but she ignored her. All the other ghosts have retreated to the basement to avoid the racket, but not him. He materializes in her room and hits the off switch, looking at her expectantly.<p>

"What the fuck, Tate?"

She goes to push him out of the way to get to her stereo, but he doesn't budge.

"You've been avoiding me."

"Maybe that's because I don't want to see you."

She is pushing against his chest, making sure her nails dig into his skin. He winces, but holds his ground.

"Why? Because you're afraid you are gonna want to kiss me again?"

"Fuck you."

"It's true, though, isn't it?"

"No!"

"You're lying."

And she knows he is right. And she hates herself for it.

"Prove it."

He runs a finger up her spine, causing her to shiver. He smirks at her and leans his face towards her so his mouth is right by her ear.

"I think I just did."

He disappears before he is tempted to go farther, his hand wrapped around his dick before he makes it to the attic.

She collapses back on her bed, screaming into her pillow.

Because as much as she hates to admit it, she wants to feel his lips on hers again.

She wants to taste the burn.

* * *

><p>AN: Sexual tension, ahhhh! Reviews are always loved.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: YOU ARE ALL AMAZING! Your reviews make me so happy! Especially since all of you are such great authors yourselves (I would know, I've read your work numerous times), it means a lot when you all say you love my story.

And if you're interested, my soundtrack when I'm writing this story includes "I Get Off" by Halestorm, "Out of My Mind" by Cavashawn, "Faceless" by Red, "Paradise Circus" by Massive Attack, and "Post Blue" by Placebo. In my opinion, "Faceless" and "Post Blue" are perfect for Tate and Violet.

Happy reading!

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

It's building.

She knows. So does he.

It's only a matter of time.

* * *

><p>She hasn't been sleeping well. It is making her cranky even though she knows that she does not need the sleep. Her bed suddenly has all these lumps in it and she can't seem to get comfortable. She feels like she is in the story of the princess and the pea, except that she was no princess and her pea was a boy with blond curls and blood on his hands.<p>

She sighs, deciding that she has had enough of tossing and turning for the night. Feeling the cool breeze on her face, she lodges herself in the open window frame, arm hanging lazily over her knee and hand idly twirling a cancer stick. Puffs of smokes curl out of her nostrils and she blows a perfect O, watching it deform in the wind when a gust sweeps into her room. Once she is done sucking down her carcinogens that can't kill her, she whistles a low tune, one with little lilts and long sorrowful notes coming together to be a story. She can't help but know that the story is about her and him.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are."

He phases out of the shadows and she smiles slightly, remembering the dank basement and latex and his laugh when he thought he scared her. And he did, but of course she wasn't about to admit it.

"Couldn't sleep?"

"What's the point of asking a question you already know the answer to?"

He sits down on the floor by the windowsill, looking up at her with big, hopeful eyes.

"I just wanted confirmation."

"Please, I see right through that bullshit."

"What?"

"You want me to admit that I'm having trouble sleeping because of you."

He says nothing.

"It's not you."

"I didn't say it was me."

"You implied it."

"I did?"

"Ass."

He smirks, laying down on the floor like a cat and arching his back to stretch his muscles. Her eyes go hard because his shirt had ridden up, allowing her to see a little bit of his abs. She could also distinctly make out his happy trail of little blonde hairs in the moonlight leading down into his blue boxers, making her clench her fists. He lets out a big sigh crossed with a growl as he relaxes his muscles.

"God, could you be any less subtle?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

He was winding her up like a coil. Just like Chad said. She was a spring in a clock, being tightened with a screwdriver of lust until she could no longer bear it and she exploded free.

That fucker. Two can play this game.

She hops off the ledge, stepping over his face to make absolutely sure he can see her floral printed underwear as she makes her way back to the bed.

* * *

><p>"I hate you."<p>

"No, you don't."

She doesn't. He knows she doesn't. Kisses like those don't lie.

She knows she doesn't, either.

* * *

><p>He is watching her while she is folding her laundry. He is mesmerized by how meticulously she sorts her clothes by color and type. Pants have to go in the bottom drawer, shirts in the middle one, and bras and underwear – his personal favorite – in the top. She hangs her dresses by length in the closet and he wishes that she would wear his favorite one more often – it's deep purple like her name.<p>

"Are you just going to stand there or are you going to help me?"

He smirks. He should have known she would know that he was there. When is he ever not?

He digs his hands through the laundry bin, pulling out one of her numerous cardigans. She shows him the proper way of folding it, making him do it over and over again until he gets it exactly the way she wants it.

While her back is turned, he searches through the laundry only to pull out a lacy red thong as she turns around.

"What's this?"

She goes as red as a tomato in seconds and snatches it out of his hand.

"None of your fucking business."

He chuckles at how uncomfortable he made her as if he hadn't already been intimate with those parts of her.

"And I swear, if I catch you pilfering any of my underwear, you'll be sorry."

* * *

><p>Moira asked for her help in the kitchen because she was doing her annual spring cleaning. Since it wasn't like Violet had anything better to do, she obliged, partly because she thought Moira was lonely and could use some company and partly because she knew Tate wouldn't do any of the weird sexual tension-laced bullshit he has been lately pulling with her with Moira around. Quite frankly, she needed a break.<p>

"Miss Violet, can you hand me that plate over on that top shelf?"

"Sure, Moira. Hold on one second."

She climbs onto the countertop to grab the plate, but there must have been some water or cleaner residue because the next thing she knows, she is falling backwards. She braces herself for the impact and subsequent blackness because she knows her skull is going to be making good acquaintance with the kitchen island in a couple seconds.

But the pain never comes. A pair of strong arms and familiar hands catches her as she collides hard with an equally hard chest. He hisses as his spine slams into the edge of the island and her scalp bangs his chin. And all goes quiet except for their breathing, hers a frantic, adrenaline-fueled pant while his is a labored sucking of air as he waits for the pain to subside.

And she suddenly is aware of his warmth, which is ridiculous because monsters should not be this warm. She collapses back into him, going slack against his chest as she revels in how safe she feels, which is so bitterly ironic when she knows all the horrible things he did.

"Miss Violet?" Moira's voice is tentative because she doesn't know if she wants her to interrupt the moment or leave them be.

"Oh, I'm fine, Moira." She quickly pulls herself out of his grasp, avoiding eye contact because she does not want to know what she might want to do if she saw those dark chocolate orbs right now.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

He looks at her and she feels like she is being sucked into a vortex.

"See you around later?"

She nods. "Yes." It is barely a whisper, but he smiles in acknowledgment before he leaves the kitchen to go upstairs.

Moira walks over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"You should be more careful." So many meanings behind that sentence.

"I know."

"He loves you."

"I know."

How could she ever doubt it? How could she ever doubt him?

* * *

><p>The sun is glimmering through the clouds left in the sky, leaving the shadows to play tag on her walls. She has curled up in bed with one of her favorite fluffy blankets with a steaming mug of hot chamomile tea on her nightstand. She is staring at the bird book she took out from Westfield before she died and slowly running the pad of her finger over Tate's messy scrawl on the library checkout slip.<p>

"What are you doing?"

"Just reading."

"About birds?"

"Yes, I'm reading about the Northern cardinal. I used to see them all the time when we lived in Boston."

He sits down on the bed beside her, but not too close because he knows she'll freak out especially with the strange, sexually charged atmosphere between them.

"They mate for life, you know."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

He scoots a little closer and she lets him.

She laughs softly and he wants to listen to the sound forever because it is like tinkling bells.

"What's so funny?"

"It's just that we're supposed to mate for life, you know. Marriage, commitment, all that shit. And look how royally we fuck it up all the time. Look at my dad and Hayden, Chad and Patrick, Hugo and Moira, Larry and your bitch of a mother. One train wreck after another. We're fucking terrible at being faithful. And yet these birds…" She slowly caresses the picture and looks him straight in the eyes.

"These birds have it all figured out."

He reaches out to grab her hand and she shivers at the feeling of his thumb massaging her palm.

"Are we like them or the birds?"

"We're the birds."

And it's her this time that closes the gap between their lips.

* * *

><p>AN: YAY! Reviews are always loved.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: GOSH, I'm blushing, you guys. I am totally thrilled. So much review love all for me! It looks like you all loved the birds part and I must admit, that was my favorite part of the chapter, too. They're moving closer together!

Just a heads up, I have a ton of schoolwork coming up and then finals, so I am going to be quite busy. Hence I am going to try to update as much as I can given the little time I have to do so.

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

She could taste the burn all too well.

And she never wanted to stop.

She let it run through her body, flaring her nerves and electrifying her senses. It was liquid fire, molten and bright. It was heaven, soft and glowing. It was him, dark and sharp edges and guns and hot, sticky blood. It was perfectly fucked up, but she didn't care. It was perfect because it was unequivocally, completely, absolutely them.

He curled his hands around her face, eagerly responding to her advance. He shifted so that he was caging her in with his legs, still hovering slightly over her because he was afraid that if they moved too fast that she would freak out, send him away and back to square one.

He broke the kiss to look down at her slightly swollen lips and she swore that she melted under his gaze the way iron heats up under the roaring fury of the furnace.

"God, Violet…"

"Stop talking."

He obliged her because he was not about to fuck this up, not when he finally had the chance to show her how much she means to him, how hard it was for him to lose her, and how he will never, ever let her go again if she wants him back.

He heard her make a little mewl in the back of her throat and he bit the monsters back, warring to beat down the base, possessive side of him that wanted to lock her up and make her scream in ecstasy nonstop for a week or three.

"Violet…"

The warning in his voice made her pause. She knew what he was trying to say. He was giving her a way out. If she decided that this was a mistake, she could easily send him away and they would go right back to where they were. They were hovering on the edge of a barrier that once crossed, would inevitably and irrevocably change everything. That if they continued what they were doing, he was not going to be able to control himself any longer.

She ran her hand through his curls and smiled a smile at him that he knew rivaled the radiance of the sun.

He had his answer.

He growled at her, stripping off her tights and cardigan while she quickly loosened the buttons of his shirt and the cinch of his belt buckle. And suddenly he is confronted with her naked form, and it has been so long, _so long_, and all the memories from before and of all the lonely nights with just his hand spill forward. His hands are everywhere, memorizing her softness, the contours of her hips and breasts because he is still not fully convinced that this is reality, that she is slowly but surely letting him back into her, all of her.

It's as if she reads his mind.

"I'm here."

He tenderly kisses her.

"I'm here." He echoes her, reminding her of their first time.

And they lose themselves in each other, all of the tension and passion that have built up for years released as they fold themselves together to become one.

The bird book lays on the floor, still open to the page of the Northern cardinal, its brilliant red wings seeming to reach the sky.

* * *

><p>She woke up feeling extremely warm and she knew it couldn't be because of the sun. She sits up and rubs her eyes to clear the sleepy haze. Everything seems different, brighter, more vibrant. She feels different. When she turns and sees him laying next to her, naked, all the memories of the night before come rushing back with such a vengeance she gets dizzy and fast colors dance in her vision.<p>

Warmth.

Birds.

Them.

All her breath gets sucked out of her lungs. She suddenly feels as though she can't be in the room a second longer and tries to rush out of the bed to the safety of somewhere else, somewhere where he isn't there staring her right in the face in all his beautifully sinful nakedness, but his strong grip stops her as she swings her legs over the side and slightly hisses at the cold air prickling her skin.

"Please, Vi, don't."

She doesn't speak, but she doesn't move to try to escape his grasp either. She knows his face is contorting in pain, confusion, and hurt. She doesn't dare look around for fear of the heart shattering expression she knows she will be faced with.

"Don't ruin this."

Slowly she turns back towards him, averting her eyes down to the bright purple of her sheets bought for her namesake.

"Don't leave me, Vi."

His voice slightly cracks with the amount of woe that is now descending on his brain like a tidal wave and settling in his stomach in a tight knot because now he fears the worst.

He couldn't bear it, not after having this again. Not after touching her, tasting her, receiving her wonderful affection again. It would break him so much he was sure he would splinter into actual physical pieces like one of her baby doll heads, scattered around the house like disregarded toys.

His voice is pleading now.

"Please."

Please, please, don't leave me.

She slowly snuggles down under the covers again, curling up to him. He throws his arm around her waist and hopes, prays to a God he isn't sure exists and is positive would hate him if he did, that regret would be one emotion that doesn't cross her mind.

* * *

><p>He hasn't seen her in a couple days after she slipped out of his grasp when he fell back asleep holding her. He knows she just needs time to process everything and get used to the idea of them again, but he can't help but feel impatient. He has already given her so much time. Now knowing that he has her back within his reach, every second he goes without her feels like a bitter, cold eternity.<p>

He appears in her room and sees her staring out the window with a melancholy look on her face. His heart sinks down to his shoes.

"Hey."

She starts, turning to look at him.

"Hey, you scared me."

He goes to stand next to her, pretending to study the leaves on the tree. They stand there in silence for what seems like forever before he can't take it anymore.

"I won't let you do this."

Silence.

"I won't let you push me away again."

She doesn't move.

"I won't lose you again."

I can't lose you again.

He grabs her hands, pulling her towards him with a sharp tug and wraps his arms around her.

"You won't lose me again."

Her whisper was almost inaudible.

She pulls away from him to go back to the window.

"But you need to realize that I can't go back to the way we were overnight."

He looks helplessly at her back.

"I am going to need time. Sometimes I am going to need space. You have to respect that or else this is not going to work."

She turns back around to look him right in the eyes to make sure he gets it.

"I am going to have good days. I am going to have days where all I want to do is let you hold me. I am going to have days where all I want to do is cuddle and fuck and play cards and read books with you. But I am also going to have bad days where I remember all that you did to me and my family and you are going to have to leave me alone."

She gently caresses his face and the look in her eyes tells him everything he needs to know before she says it.

"But I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

><p>AN: Did I make you guys worried? Reviews are always loved.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: WOW, all of you are amazing! Thank you all for reading and reviewing!

As much as I love this story, we are nearing the end. But I do have another story in mind – it is canon with everyone being ghosts, but AU in the living world.

And shout-out to ScarlettWoman710 and ohyellowbird: I literally bounce with excitement when I think about your next update for "The Curve of Her Lips."

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

He knows what heaven feels like. He finds it ironically funny that a creature of the darkness like himself knows heaven better than the holiest saint.

Heaven is being the object of her smile again, tasting her sweet mouth and smirking at the blush his daring lips leaves behind. Heaven is burying his nose in her hair that smells of wildflowers and softly whispering with her about Tolstoy and Keats late into the night. Heaven is pulling her towards him whenever he wants so he can kiss her and say sweet nothings and "I love you" in her ear. Heaven is tickling her until she cannot breathe, watching her eyes change from fake annoyance to fiery lust when he ventures to more feminine areas. Heaven is watching her come undone under the skillful ministrations of his hands, tongue, and cock. Heaven is reveling in the satisfaction of knowing that he will be the only one who will ever see her like that, her mouth parted in silent screams and little moans, back arching into his chest, thighs quivering. Heaven is knowing that he is the only one she wants and will ever want like that.

He thinks his face might spasm because he cannot stop grinning like an idiot. He finds himself with a skip in his step. He whistles playful little tunes when he is roaming the house. He even has been nicer to the other ghosts, causing them to look at him with both surprise and suspicion. He wonders why he is doing all these things that used to be so foreign to him, that caused him to look at the "normal" people who did them with curious puzzlement when he was alive.

And suddenly, he knows why and he almost starts crying at the realization because he never thought that this would ever come to pass.

He's happy.

* * *

><p>She knows that they won't be perfect, but she cannot bring herself to care about anything other than his loving glances and the way he holds her at night.<p>

"You know we're going to have bad days, right?"

He kisses her neck.

"I know."

He twirls her hair around his finger and she scoots back into his body so they can lie down together. He throws his arm over her waist and she decides that she likes the weight of it, like an anchor holding her down so she doesn't get cast adrift back into a sea of misery and regrets.

"I will endure ten thousand bad days if it means I can have one day like this with you."

* * *

><p>"Go fish."<p>

"Damn it."

She draws a card from the deck yet again and he smirks. She only has two pairs laid down on the carpet compared to his six and he can tell that his winning is really starting to piss her off.

"Do you have an eight?"

"Yes, of clubs."

She gives a huff of relief.

"Fucking finally."

He pulls the card out of his hand and twirls it, looking at it pensively and pretending to not see her outstretched hand that is impatiently waggling in front of him.

"Well, fork it over."

His characteristic smirk grows wide on his face and she knows he is about to pull something that is probably going to make her even madder.

"What if I don't want to?"

She sighs exasperatedly.

"Oh, for the fucking love of – just give it!"

She hurdles right into him, trying to swat the card away from his hand, but he is too fast for her. His arms shoot out to her shoulders and push her down on to the floor. He sits on her midsection, trying not to laugh but failing miserably because she is just so cute when she is angry and trying to blow her hair out of her face.

"You are such an asshole."

But he knows that glint in her eyes.

He shimmies down her body so that their faces are aligned and his hot breath in her ear is driving her crazy. Her breath quickens pace and she feels shooting warmth everywhere, culminating in a pool in her lower abdomen.

"But it turns you on, doesn't it?"

"Damn you."

But she is only pretending to be mad at him now, her former real anger draining away as his proximity and heat are lighting up other parts of her.

He licks the outer shell of her ear and she shudders.

"Don't try to deny it."

She arches with a small cry, momentarily distracting him with the feel of her body, and before he knows it, the situations are reversed and he is staring up into her laughing eyes. She slams her hands down loudly on either side of his head and lowers her face close to his so that her hair forms a soft, private curtain around them. She slowly grinds herself on his dick, making sure he can see her face change and hear her breath catch when she hits a particularly good spot.

"I won't as long as you don't."

He could never deny how she makes him feel. He returns a smile as his answer, rocking his pelvis up so she could feel just how much she turns him on.

"Tate." It comes out as a hiss and his eyes go dark. She knows that her saying his name when they're like this is his ultimate weakness.

"Violet." His response is a grunt and she rewards him with a sharp snap of her hips downward.

"Please."

That one little word holds such power of him because he is incapable of denying her anything. If it is in his power, he will give her whatever she wants. He would give her the moon, the sun, the whole world itself.

He rockets up, keeping her steady with his arms as she lets out a squeak of surprise. He dumps her on the bed and she collapses back. While he is ridding himself of his offending pieces of clothing, she looks at him with her best come-hither eyes and he knows he would never be able to resist those shining orbs, beckoning him to touch and love her. He stalks towards her on the bed, covering her body with his as she lightly giggles.

He slowly removes her clothing, trying to show his reverence of her body, kissing every part of her. He wants her to know how much he cherishes her so she will never, ever doubt his love again.

Soon she is naked and panting under him and he is trying to hold the demons back for her. But she lifts her hand to his face and pulls him down so close to hers their lips are almost touching.

"Let go, Tate."

He shakes his head. He refuses to subject her to that awful side of him again.

"You won't hurt me."

But he has already hurt her so much. He shakes his head again.

"When people love each other, they love the whole other person, not just the parts that are nice and safe."

He freezes and looks at her with surprise. Did she just say indirectly that she loved him? She has not said it back to him yet, just returned his daily declarations of love with a laugh, kiss, or a smile. He was content with that because he knows she is still healing, but he cannot help but hope she will say it back to him soon.

"Let me love all of you, Tate."

He feels like his heart is going to burst out of his chest when he smashes his mouth onto hers, hungrily drinking her in. He wishes he could bottle that sentence and carry it around with him.

And when he has made her scream in pleasure and she has undone him as well, he smiles a beautiful smile at her, which is returned with a resplendent one of her own. They lay there for hours after, basking in each other's warmth before falling asleep.

He settles for repeating it softly to himself, but he wishes he could shout it from the rooftops.

She loves him.

* * *

><p>AN: Reviews are always loved.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: I am so sorry I have been gone for so long, but with my graduation from college and Senior Week and finals, I was unbelievably busy. Before I head off to graduate school, I will be able to do some more writing, so get pumped. Thank you for all the love that you have shown me and this story. We are arriving to the end of this one, but there is no way I can stop writing Tate and Violet because they are just too amazing.

As for recommendations, read everything by Captivation, TheDevotchka, jandjsalmon, Tjoek, Gray Glube, ScarlettWoman710, ohyellowbird, The Walking Reedus, gimmedanger, paceyourself, and shootingstella. All of their work is phenomenal.

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

She loves him.

If he could die again, he knows that he would die happy, content in knowing that her arms would be cradling him as he awaited whatever lies beyond this world.

But he doesn't want to die again because whatever lies ahead cannot compare to her eyes shining with love and her fingers tangled in his hair.

He knows that they are going to have bad days, but he will work through them for her. He just hopes she can work through them for him.

* * *

><p>The first bad day hit sooner than either of them expected.<p>

She is in the backyard so she can watch Constance's house. There is an unfamiliar blue car in the driveway, a Corvette with its twin flags prominently proclaiming the owner's wealth and midlife crisis to any driver who cares enough to pay attention. She smirks, wondering what poor, naïve sucker Constance has stuck her claws in now. It is probably someone like Larry who is totally clueless to the obvious fact that Constance wants his money to wheedle and weasel her way back into the Murder House. He probably thinks she loves him, following her around like a puppy happily eating up the few treats she sometimes remembers to throw back behind her for him. Violet shakes her head because she has no sympathy for someone that dumb because stupidity gets you killed around here.

She knows from experience.

"Hi."

She whips towards the sound that snapped her out of her thoughts and sees a miniature version of him, smiling like he has a big secret he cannot wait to tell her. He is holding a stick clenched tightly in one hand and a bunch of wilted flowers – dandelions, marigolds, and clover – in the other. There is a small smear that suspiciously looks like blood on his denim overalls and one of his shoes is untied.

Michael.

Tate's child.

The realization hits her like a strong wave knocks a surfer off his board, tossing him around like a rag doll until his lungs are bursting and his mind is panicking because he doesn't know which way is up. A dizzy spell hits her so fast that it is all she can do not to vomit her lunch right into Constance's rose bushes.

"Are you alright?"

"Mind your own business, kid."

Her speech is slow and choked. She has her hands down on her shaky knees, willing herself to calm down. She refuses to hyperventilate in front of the demon child that killed her mother and ripped apart her own heart in the process. Slowly, her breathing steadies and she raises her eyes to Michael's, wondering if him having Vivien's sky colored eyes or Tate's intense brown ones would be more painful.

They're blue like her mom's.

She is running back towards the house when the first broken sobs escape her throat.

* * *

><p>"I told you to be more careful."<p>

"I know."

"You didn't listen to me."

"No."

Silence stretches on forever between them as Moira cleans the dishes meticulously. The sunlight dances through the windows as the blazing ball of fire dips ever lower in the sky. Moira sighs as she lays down her dishcloth next to the sink after putting the last soup bowl into the dishwasher.

"He loves you."

"I know."

"Do you love him?"

Tears are making salty waterfalls down her face as she sees the perfect image of Michael with his blue eyes and blond hair – the unmistakable hybrid of her mother and the love of her life and afterlife – in her mind yet again. She slumps against the kitchen counter as she moans and runs a hand through her hair.

"God help me, I do."

"God can't help us anymore."

Violet gives an indignant scoff as she lights a cigarette.

"Like he ever helped us before."

* * *

><p>He hasn't seen her for two days now and he is getting worried. He roams the house, calling out for her but the halls are devoid of her footsteps and laughter. He can't smell her shampoo's scent in the bathroom anymore and her iPod stands silently like a soldier in her stereo. Her computer's screen saver is mocking him with those long alternating color streaks, indicating that she has not touched it recently. He is becoming more frantic, appearing in her room every five minutes in case she shows up to play a game of Scrabble though in his heart he knows she won't be there. He is running down the stairs to check the kitchen once more when he smacks right into Chad, causing both of them to tumble down the stairs and land with a tremendous thump by the front door.<p>

"Never thought I'd see you in this position. Figured you were more of an on-top kinda guy."

"Shut the fuck up."

"So what's the rush, Norm? Can't find your little love?"

He throws Chad off him and scrambles to his feet. Before he can walk away, Tate grabs him by his shirt and pins him to the wall with his elbow against his windpipe, which does nothing to wipe Chad's bored look off his face. He even has the nerve to roll his eyes, which rewards him with a well-aimed punch to the gut.

"Really, that's the best you got?"

"Where is she?" Tate's voice is deathly cold and calm, which belies the panic and craziness he can feel rising to the surface due to her absence.

"I don't know. I'm not her babysitter."

Tate slams his hand against the wall right next to Chad's head.

"I'm not fucking kidding, where is she?"

"It's none of your business."

"The hell it is my business!"

"No, it's not. Violet is a big girl and she can do whatever she wants. If that happens to include avoiding you, you need to respect that."

Anger gives way to worry. Tate releases him and Chad gently rubs his neck as he glares at his murderer.

"Is she alright?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know why she is hiding from me?"

"Yes."

His heart leaped into his throat.

Please, please let everything be alright. I can't lose her again. I won't survive it.

"Your demon spawn talked to her."

Oh God, no. No. The twisted feeling in his stomach was so painful he sunk to the floor and his head fell into his hands.

"Apparently being reminded that the boy who popped your cherry also knocked up and killed your mother doesn't a good day make."

"Fuck!"

Chad ignores his outburst, looking down at him with a disdainful look in his eyes.

"I won't pretend I don't hate you because I do. I really do. You're one fucked up son of a bitch."

He squats down and yanks his head up by his hair so they are staring each other right in the face.

"But I want Violet to be happy because she of all people in this house didn't deserve what happened to her. So you better fucking man up and listen to what I have to say. You're the one who screwed up big time, so you need to do what she wants this time around. If she wants space, you fucking give it to her even if that means you suffer. In fact, I hope you do. She has a lot of emotion to deal with already and seeing your little Antichrist offspring didn't help any."

He lets go of Tate's hair, stands back up, and turns his back to Tate's shivering form huddled against the wall of the staircase.

"You need to learn to live with the consequences of your actions."

Tate nods his head almost imperceptibly, but his mind was filled with thoughts of Violet being face-to-face with his son.

His son.

The thought was so repulsive that he dry heaved onto the floor, which earned another contemptuous look from Chad before he disappeared to find Patrick.

He just rocked back and forth for what seemed like forever, spinning with thoughts of Violet, Michael, and worst of all, himself.

Violet.

No.

I can't lose you.

Not again.

* * *

><p>AN: OH NO! Now what? Reviews are always loved.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: WOW, everyone, you're all just so great. Hugs for all!

Recommendations must go out to ohyellowbird and ScarlettWoman710's _The Curve of Her Lips_. This fic is what all authors in this fandom should aspire to. It is that fabulous. I just hope I can capture a sliver of the awesomeness in this story. Anything by Gray Glube is fantastic; _Moral Dust_ is my personal favorite. I do a little jig every time I see a new story by her in my inbox. _Tate's Conscience_ and _The Noble War_ by TheDevotchka are phenomenal. _Lemonworld_ by gimmedanger is perfection, so read it. Please continue it sooner rather than later! _100%_ and _200_ by Captivation are great – as a former track runner, I adore everything about them and she writes this particular Tate and Violet so well. Lovely Helena's _Sympathy for the Devil_ is awesome! Please write a sequel, I am begging you! And I must shout out to The Walking Reedus, shootingstella, and jandjsalmon for their wonderful stories and the inspiring reviews they have left me – you ladies make me smile!

I am so lucky to be writing in such an amazing fandom with such amazing authors. Thank you for loving my story and giving me and everyone who loves _American Horror Story_ great stories about our favorite couple.

The line "I have been judged, and I have been found wanting." is adapted from the Book of Daniel.

_**Oh, How It Burns **_

She doesn't know where she goes.

She cannot describe how it feels when she is not corporeal. It is like she is mist rolling over a cool lake, slowly slinking and gliding along the surface until it pools at its edges. People know it is there, but when they try to grasp those tiny water droplets, they disappear and elude capture.

Tate knows she is there. She can feel him searching for her, but it is like she is underwater and everything is distorted. It feels like someone is talking to her and her brain acknowledges that he or she is speaking to her and the words are flowing, but her brain cannot process them; stringing meaning to these jumbles of sounds and letters pouring from this other person's mouth is near impossible. She does not have the energy to respond to his words, but right now she doesn't think she wants to.

Michael. Michael. Michael.

God, his eyes.

The pain is still raw and ugly in her gut, spreading its poison through her veins and its paralysis through her limbs. She sinks into the house even more so and his words are no stronger than a baby's breath.

But they are still there.

* * *

><p>"How long are you gonna punch that wall for?"<p>

"Shut up, you stupid whore."

"Interesting choice of words."

Tate was in no mood for dealing with batshit crazy Hayden especially when he had to somehow fix this mess with Violet and Michael, but her response really fucking pissed him off. Because he knew what she was implying.

"If you got something to say, you better say it."

He turned around slowly, knuckles shredded and blood dripping slowly, the morbidly melodic drip, drip, drip echoing off the basement walls. He found her casually leaning on the doorpost, looking at him like a cat would size up a helpless mouse or a crippled bird.

Too bad she forgot his claws are out to play.

She heaves herself off the wood and walks towards him, scuffing her feet on the floor.

"Well, I just thought it was a bit hypocritical of you to call me that."

"Oh, really now?" His voice was ice-cold.

"Yeah, since you aren't the exact model of fidelity and purity yourself."

"Don't you think I know that?"

"I know you know that, but I know you also think that your love should overshadow all the fucked up things you did. And guess what? Life – or should I say death – doesn't work that way. Being dead and idiotic and stupidly in love does not give you a free pass for forcibly boning your girlfriend's mom and getting her pregnant."

He suddenly sprang into action and pinned Hayden against the basement wall. He smirked at her, but his smile did not reach his eyes.

"Are you done with your morality lesson?"

She smirked right back.

"Just remember to judge yourself before you judge others."

"Will do."

And he snapped her neck while she was laughing at him. He believed that she expected him to.

He materialized to the roof because he sure as hell did not want to see Hayden when she revived. She was an unwanted mirror that reflected all his hated flaws and failures back at him. And because he knew that she was right. She was so right it hurt.

As his hands slowly knit back together, he utters a choked sob of Violet's name and hangs his head. The breeze flutters through his blonde curls and his eyelashes clump together under the weight of his tears.

"I have been judged, and I have been found wanting."

* * *

><p>"Hey, Dr. Harmon."<p>

"Tate."

"Look, I know you still hate me and will probably hate me forever, but I need to talk to you about something."

Ben sighs and runs his hand through his hair.

"About Violet." It wasn't a question.

"About Violet."

* * *

><p>She still floats within the house. Snippets of conversations, intimate moments, music, and the daily ruckus of living – even though what could be constituted as normal living sounds for a bunch of incredibly screwed up, angry ghosts stuck in a house for eternity – would intrude upon her consciousness every so often.<p>

"Look, I know you still hate me and will probably hate me forever, but I need to talk to you about something."

"About Violet."

"About Violet."

And he and her father fade back into the underlying noise of the house. This encounter piqued her interest – her father and Tate in one room, actually talking without it devolving in both of them trying to simultaneously cry and beat the living shit out of each other. It almost made her come back.

But only almost.

* * *

><p>It's been two weeks now.<p>

He knows exactly.

* * *

><p>Now a month.<p>

More bloodied hands and purple bruises.

* * *

><p>Six weeks.<p>

* * *

><p>Two months.<p>

Moira yelled at him for taking a baseball bat to the lamps in the hallways.

* * *

><p>Three months.<p>

He takes to bleeding himself out in the bathtub.

* * *

><p>Four months.<p>

He desperately clings onto the memories he had of her just to verify that they really happened. Perversely, sometimes those memories made this time worse because they undoubtedly showed that this absence of hers was a return to the hell he thought he had finally been released from.

It hurts more when you have a taste of what you have yearned for for so long and get it taken away again than to just be denied it continuously.

He decided that whoever said it was better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all was a fucking idiot.

* * *

><p>She has peacefully remained in her ethereal state, never fully asleep yet never fully awake. But something finally jolts her out of this dreaming.<p>

"Violet."

It's him.

Tate.

He is calling out for her, sounding so forlorn and lost that her heart seizes up.

"Violet, if you can hear me, I'm sorry." His voice cracks at the end and he dissolves in tears as he sits down on her bed with his head in his hands.

Why did this wake her up? Why is this time different from all the other times he has cried out to her in the past four months?

She doesn't know. She is not sure she needs to.

* * *

><p>He leaves notes all over the house for her.<p>

"I love you."

"I miss you."

"You are the light."

"You are my world."

"You are everything."

"Please come back to me."

* * *

><p>And just as suddenly as she left him, she came back.<p>

He heard her voice down the hall, but when he ran to see her, she wasn't there.

Then he saw her figure dart around a corner and when he ran to catch up with her, she was nowhere to be found.

He smelled her scent of wildflowers on the wind outside and heard her iPod blaring their beloved Cobain.

But she had not shown herself to him yet.

Chad's words echoed through his mind.

"You're the one who screwed up big time, so you need to do what she wants this time around. If she wants space, you fucking give it to her even if that means you suffer."

And he realizes that it is not all about him. It's about her.

It's about her and him, together.

* * *

><p>AN: Reviews are loved!


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: I am so sorry it has been so long, but I have not had a spare moment. I got an apartment near my graduate school and had to sign the lease within the week, so last week I was running around getting my apartment set up. The past few days I was working my little ass off at my job and when I got home after 10 hours of dealing with phones and angry patients, I had no energy to write and I was not about to write a piece of shit because you, my lovely readers, deserve only my best. But I'm back and get ready because some emotional shit is about to get real.

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

She is not ready to face him just yet.

She doesn't know if she is strong enough and she knows she needs to be.

But not to tell him to go away or to go to hell.

But to accept if not to forgive.

She needs to be strong enough for the both of them because her happiness, his life, their future depend on it.

* * *

><p>They play their odd game of cat-and-mouse for a week, each day both more bearable and unendurable than the last because she was there yet not there. It was new type of torture and he wasn't sure if it was worse than when she had melded into the house. What was worse - not seeing her at all because he knew she had merged with the house or just missing her and knowing she was corporeal? He couldn't bear it either way, but he had to for her.<p>

He hears her singing along to the lyrics of a favorite song of theirs and he is off like a shot to her room, hopeful that this time will be the time that she lets him back into her light.

* * *

><p>Is she ready? She knows he is coming.<p>

Is she?

She nervously chews on a hangnail until she rips it off accidentally, the pain causing her to hiss as she looks at the small dribble of blood blooming up from the wound. She paces back and forth, back and forth, palms hugging her elbows and eyes flitting to the door. She tries to distract herself by focusing on anything, from the intricate cobweb in the corner to the peeling of the paint surrounding her window to the quiet scuttle of some insect across the floor.

She can hear his footsteps in the hallway, barreling towards her room. Her breathing increases rapidly and she feels like she is spinning.

Is she?

_Is she?_

And then the door flings open.

* * *

><p>He takes the steps two at a time. He knows he could just materialize to her room, but he is afraid that will startle her and the absolute last thing he wants to do is spook her back into the comforting arms of the house.<p>

He is giving her a little more time and he thinks it is the greatest gift he could give her because it is so hard for him to be alone, to be away from her. Surely she knows this.

He is in the hallway now. His heart is jumping madly and his hands begin to sweat.

So close.

He is at her door.

And time seems to slow, stretch, casting off the laws of physics that normally govern it, and his reality warps into something new and frightening.

All that separates them physically is a door, a panel of wood and paint with a knob tinted a harsh, glaring gold.

But he doesn't know what separates them emotionally now. It could be nothing or it could be an ocean.

Is he ready?

Is he?

But it is too late and he wrenches the door open.

* * *

><p>They stare at each other for what seems like forever.<p>

He looks at her with love and she can tell he is being cautiously gentle with her because he doesn't want to scare her. His eyes drink her in like water.

She looks at him with a bucket load of emotions – love, relief, confusion, fear, pain – all battling for control of her irises and muscles.

"Violet."

Only he can make her name sound so beautiful. It sounds like a song and a prayer, melodious and heartfelt and yearning. It sounds like salvation.

His salvation.

"Tate."

Her voice cracks ever so slightly, but it is enough to break the spell between them and he rushes up to her, gathering her in his arms and nuzzling his face in her hair.

"Oh, Violet, I thought…"

I thought I had lost you for good.

"I know. It…it just came out of nowhere and it just hurt so much and I had to go away for a while. I'm sorry."

He pulls away and looks at her, mildly shocked that she of all people is apologizing to him.

"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry you had to see him."

How does he say all the things he wants to?

But now she starts to cry, her bottom lip trembling with the effort she is exerting to stop the breakdown, and all the words that have been building up for four months and one week come tumbling out with the force of a tidal wave.

"Violet, please don't cry. I'm sorry! I'm so sorry for everything I've done! You are the one person that I swore I would never hurt and I've hurt you the most. I'm pathetic and weak and dark and monstrous and I don't deserve your love or forgiveness."

He falls to his knees, weeping as she is, clutching her knees like a supplicant and he is a supplicant appealing to her light and love in the hopes that she will not send him away.

"I love you with every fiber of my being, every breath I breathe, every beat of my dead heart. You are my everything. I love you because you taught me things that I never knew before, about happiness and selflessness and courage. I love you because you're funny and kind and sweet and curious and brave. I love you because you gave me hope and light. You are my lantern, my lighthouse, my beacon guiding me out of the twisted darkness I thought I could never escape. I said I would wait forever, a thousand thousand years, for you."

He looks up into her wide eyes as she tries to process everything he is saying to her.

"Tate…" Her voice is breathless, airy, like his speech literally knocked the wind out of her lungs.

"I know you need space. I understand that now. As much as I want to be with you all the time, you need to heal and that involves being away from me."

He grasps her hands in his.

"Just tell me what you need and I'll do it. I'll do anything for you, Violet. Even if it hurts me. I swear it on whatever soul I have left."

She just stares at him, bewildered, until something finally shakes her back to herself. She kneels down to his level and touches her forehead to his.

Her request comes suddenly and jolts him out of his thoughts.

"Hold me."

And he knows that she said so many other things in those two words.

"Always."

He pulls her into his arms and they lean against the foot board of the bed for a long time, listening to the crickets chirp and counting the cathartic tears running down their faces.

* * *

><p>AN: A little short, I know, but don't worry, there's more to come! Reviews are loved!


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: I'm back! Again I apologize for being away for so long, but I have just been so very exhausted from work. I think the strain of waiting for the next season is about to kill me and I don't know what to do without Evan Peters. Seriously, the feelings I have for that man shouldn't be legal.

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

They start off slow as they did before. Only this time Violet isn't throwing lamps at his invisible form, for which Tate is thankful.

But he can tell that something is wrong. Her eyes go glassy when she thinks he isn't looking – and he knows she should know better than to think a moment passes without him watching her – and she stares, unseeing, at the wall or some other mundane object. She is retreating into her mind, into some dark place that he cannot reach, and it frightens him.

Sometimes he sees her fight the alluring pull of this place. She overeagerly tries to engage him in conversation or Scrabble or cards. She makes sure that she greets every ghost she comes across. She helps Moira clean almost every day as if ghosts gather dust. She sips wine with her mother, talking about things that his gender excludes him from. He sees her start to slip and then she starts, shivers, jolts herself out of this place and gives him the most heartbreaking smile that has ever existed on a human face.

She fights because she is a fighter if nothing else; he knew her bravery is one of the many things that attracted him to her in the first place. She knows that she cannot, should not leave because she has too much here – her family and him.

But other times, she does not fight and she is swept away, a willing and content passenger, by the tide that leads her to this place. He doesn't know for how long that she will be able to resist the siren call.

* * *

><p>"Violet?"<p>

She looks like a dream, sitting on the window ledge with the ever present cigarette in her hand. Her hair is blowing faintly with the breeze and her skirt billows from the little eddies of air that sneak up under.

"Yeah?"

He approaches her softly, silently, like a cat, noiselessly gliding across the bedroom until he is by her side – the only place he ever wants to be.

She turns her gaze from Constance's lit window to focus on him. The Corvette is still in the driveway, so she knows the poor sap is still fucking clueless about the hellcat who is probably seducing him at this very moment. She wrinkles her nose in disgust and turns her mind away from that house because she would much prefer not to think about the other thing that lives there.

He suddenly looks nervous, shy, bashful as he nibbles on his thumbnail.

"What is it, Tate?" Her voice sounded small and meek with an edge of concern.

"Where do you go?"

She knew what he meant. He knew she knew.

She sighed deeply, the air rattling in her lungs as she pushed to exhale it out into the vast atmosphere outside.

"I don't know."

His breath is a sharp hiss.

"Why do you leave?"

"I don't know. Sometimes it is because of the pain, but other times…"

She looks deep into his eyes as he is trying desperately to understand and coax her back to him.

"Maybe the reason is not meant to be understood."

* * *

><p>Tate is walking around aimlessly in the backyard. He is so focused on trying to find a way to break through to Violet that he doesn't notice two blue eyes watching him through the hedges.<p>

"You need to help her."

He whips his head towards the voice violently. Michael does not give any indication that he was sorry for startling him. Tate looks dumbly at his offspring, trying to see if he feels a connection, anything, towards this devil child, this costly mistake born of rape and mutated loyalty to a ghost who rarely recognizes him anymore. To his relief, he feels nothing. His child is but a stranger that bears a striking resemblance to him.

"The pretty girl. You need to help her."

He feels a stabbing pain right in his gut and he wonders if it is anything like the pain she must have felt seeing him with his tiny overalls and dirt-smeared face.

"I know."

* * *

><p>"Go on a date with me?"<p>

She smiles at him and ruffles his hair.

"What am I going to do, turn down a handsome guy like you?"

Neither of them mentions that she turned him down for years and years and it nearly broke both of them.

He grins at her. "You just can't resist my charms." His charms include being really good at brutally murdering people, but again they avoid that particular one.

"So what are we going to do considering we're stuck here?"

"Just leave it to me."

* * *

><p>He creates a scavenger hunt for her. She outwardly rolls her eyes at how romantically cliché it is, but inside she is excited for what she will find at the end.<p>

After she finds everything on the list, she goes outside to see him sitting on a blanket with a beautiful picnic spread out before him. She drinks wine while he nurses a beer and they together greedily devour the food he has prepared – a roast chicken with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.

"The food tastes heavenly. How did you get it?"

The corner of his mouth quirks up. "That is my little secret." He pulls her to his chest and she settles between his legs as they look up at the sunset. The sky is a deep orange red with pink streaks running across the sky like bloody gashes, reminding her of his past. She instead tries to find the first star of the night and does, its twinkling catching her eye as she looks to her left.

"Look, it's the first star of the night."

He nuzzles her neck, planting soft, butterfly kisses and earning a breathy sigh in return. He mumbles his response against her neck and the reverberations run straight to her heart and between her legs.

"Now you have to make a wish."

She closes her eyes and sings the rhyme she memorized as a kid.

"Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight; I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight."

A few moments of silence pass and she opens her eyes.

"What did you wish for?"

"Ah ah, you know that if you tell someone your wish, it won't come true."

"I know, but I had to try." He smiles and rests his head on her shoulder as more stars make their appearance in the now inky black sky.

"Did you have fun?" His breath gently tickles her ear.

"Yes, I did." She twists around so she can see him properly and she remembers why she fell in love with him in the first place – his eyes burning with passion, so earnest and sincere in his desire to please her. They hesitate, letting their eyes do all the talking before he leans down and she presses up and they consume each other with their kiss.

In that kiss, she felt like she witnessed the birth of the world, filled with new, exciting things just aching to be discovered, explored, known. She felt electrified, on fire, highly sensitive to everything about her – her lips tingling, her tongue yearning to taste him over and over again – as well as about him, how he groaned softly in her mouth and tightened a fist in her hair.

In that kiss, he felt the war between him and the tide shift ever so slightly.

* * *

><p>"Hey, Moira, do you need any help?"<p>

"I would appreciate it very much, Miss Violet."

She takes a feather dust and starts sweeping down the ledges in the living room as Moira concentrates on the fireplace. She takes care to be gentle with the pictures, pausing to recall the memories that they captured. Her with her parents on a trip to Yosemite before things fell apart. Her parents' wedding picture with her mom looking ridiculously happy and beautiful with her hair falling in ringlets around her face and her dad looking dashing in his tux. Her with her grandmother before she became old and frail – she is teaching her how to paint and both of them are looking up from a sea of colors and papers to smile at the camera.

Moira comes up behind her and puts a hand on her shoulder, rubbing it softly. She lowers the feather dust down slowly from the picture with her grandmother. She blinks back tears.

"If I may be frank, Miss Violet?"

"I have learned to expect nothing less from you."

"He is trying very hard for you."

"He has planned another date for us tonight."

"I'm happy to hear that."

Violet turns around quickly so she is facing Moira, looking at the clouded eye and wondering if her fate will be any different, that she will eventually be able to find peace to be with the boy that loves her instead of letting her mind take her away to that place.

It is as if she reads her mind.

"It will be, Miss Violet, if you let it."

* * *

><p>AN: Reviews are loved!


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: And we're back! This chapter is definitely going to have a high probability of Tate fangirling and hardcore squeeing.

_**Oh, How It Burns**_

"You ready for our next date?"

"Yeah." She playfully nudges him in the side. "Gonna pick me up in a fancy car?"

"You know it."

Neither of them mentions that Halloween is far away and access to the outside world is just a fantasy for them right now.

"I'll get you at 7."

She smiles at him and it never ceases to amaze him how happy that slight curling of her lips makes him feel.

"Don't be late."

She laughs softly, the sound bouncing around in his skull. He wants to commit it to memory so he will never forget that her laugh is worth everything, that her happiness is worth all of the back breaking, soul crushing pain he endures. She looks at him straight in the eyes and he feels dizzy with their intensity.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

* * *

><p>He is true to his word, arriving at her bedroom door with a bouquet of violets. She can't help but giggle at the obvious reference and he alternates between sheepishly looking at her and the floor. He holds them out to her.<p>

"Too cheesy?"

She slides off the bed, her large mustard cardigan sweeping out behind her, and makes her way towards him. She grasps his hand holding the flowers and looks up at him through the fringe of her eyelashes.

"Yes. But I love them anyway."

He can't help himself – he knew he made a mental promise not to try to kiss her until after their date, but right now he couldn't care less. He stretches his neck over the bouquet, his nose assaulted with the warm, comforting smell of the flowers, and lightly kisses her. Her eyes fluttered shut and for a brief moment, all that existed was the two of them.

He hates to break away, but he knows he must or else he would just back her up against the bed and do unspeakable things to her and as much as he wants that, he knows she needs something else right now.

The eye contact between them after he slowly detaches his lips from hers would make fire seem cold and ice seem scorching.

"Come on, we should get a vase for these."

"Yeah, I'm sure we have one in the kitchen."

They journey down to the kitchen, hastily looking through all the cupboards until she shouts with delight that she has found one. After filling the crystal vase with water, she gently places the flowers in, skimming the petals with her fingertips. They return to her room so she can set the vase on her bedstand.

"There we go."

He takes her hand and turns her to face him.

"I'm glad you like them."

"How could I not, when they're from you?"

His heart swells with the kind of joy many people spend their whole lives wishing for. He asks her the same question as he did before, but this one seems more grave, teeming with implications that the first time didn't have.

"Are you ready?"

She places a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth.

"Always."

* * *

><p>He leads her up the attic stairs despite the creaky protests of the wood under both their weights. But as soon as she reaches the top stair, he covers her eyes and she gives a squeak.<p>

"Tate, what are you doing?"

"I want it to be a surprise. Come on, I'll help you up."

He pulls her up, his hands gripping hers, until she is safely on the landing. She feels him walk behind her, his hands sliding out of hers and onto her lower back, so he can guide her to wherever he wants.

"When can I open them?"

He quietly laughs at her impatience. "In a second."

They stop and his breath tickles her ear and sends shivers up and down her body. His hand slips away and the suspense is killing her.

"Now."

She awakens to a wonderland of lights – there are candles everywhere, giving the room a soft ambience she never would have thought possible in such a dark, tainted house. A thick blanket laden with food is spread on the floor – a salad with tomatoes and olives, a loaf of sourdough, and eggplant parmesan, one of her absolute favorite dishes.

She refuses to squeal because to do such a thing isn't like her at all, but she almost does. Almost.

"Oh, Tate, this is lovely."

"A lovely meal for an even lovelier woman."

She blushes at his flattery.

"Come on, you silly goose. Let's eat."

* * *

><p>After dinner, they lay down on the blanket, watching the shadows play with each other and dance along the ceiling. Suddenly he sits up, propping his head on one hand to face her.<p>

"I have another surprise for you."

She mirrors his stance, eyes shining with merriment and excitement.

"What is it?"

He grins and her heart melts because here, right in front of her, was the boy that she fell in love with the first time. Now she has gone and fallen in love with him again against all odds, against all obstacles, and she can't help but believe that their love story is one of the greatest love stories that have ever unfolded.

He pops up with the grace of a leopard and goes to a far corner. She smiles as she hears him fiddling with something that sounds like a lock and soon he returns, dragging an old trunk with him.

"What is this?"

He smirks and she knows that her heart is destined to remain a puddle of goo for the rest of the night, maybe indefinitely.

"Dress up."

* * *

><p>"It's an old trunk filled with vintage clothes. I found it when I was exploring a while ago. I think it was left from one of the old owners."<p>

He looks longingly at her as she is excitedly pawing through the clothes. She gasps as she pulls out a three-piece black suit and blood red tie and thrusts them towards him, eliciting a small chuckle from him.

"You must try these on."

"Okay."

He goes a little ways away to dress, stripping off his shirt first so she can see the muscular curves of his shoulder blades. She hungrily stares at him and he can feel her desire emanating in waves. He drops his pants and tries to hide the effect that her look is having on him.

"So I get to choose what you'll be wearing. That's only fair."

Her face breaks into a smirk and he groans because this is a battle that he is never going to win.

"Ah ah, I want to choose."

He starts to protest, but her look returns in full force and he knows he is helpless to deny her.

"I want to surprise you now."

* * *

><p>She has yet to emerge from the corner she retreated to after quickly snagging the outfit she decided to try on. He can hear shuffling and the rustling of fabric and he is quite sure the anticipation would have killed him if he weren't already dead.<p>

"Hello there, handsome."

She steps out back into the light and his jaw hits the floor because she looks utterly ravishing.

A one shoulder, deep red gown hugs her curves with an off-centered slit traveling halfway up her thigh. Her hands are encased in simple lace black gloves that go up beyond her elbows, which correspond with the beautiful lace fascinator that adorns her head with half the lace falling over her face. Her hair floats in soft waves around her shoulders and he can make out a bold rhinestone necklace gracing her neck and small rhinestone earrings sparkling in her ears.

She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"You look stunning." He was wondering how and when he somehow got his mouth to work while he was still gawking at her like an idiot.

"You look quite dashing yourself."

He approaches her slowly, afraid that she was a dream, a fairy, an angel who would fly away out of his grasp if he got too close. She was too blindingly, heart achingly, enchantingly beautiful to be real.

He sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves.

"So now what do we do?"

"You ask me to dance."

She raises one eyebrow as if issuing a challenge and he playfully smiles back. He extends his hand to her and the way they look at each other is so consuming and incinerating that he knows, just knows, that right then the tide pulling her away from him receded again, another small victory in the war.

"Will you do me the honor of this dance?"

She places her hand in his and he spins her into his body so that they are pressed up against each other. His hands encircle the small of her back and hers loop around his head to rest clasped over his shoulders. She giggles as he twirls her once before resuming their original swaying.

"What's so funny?"

"I just never thought you would be a good dancer."

"You wound me, my fair lady."

"I didn't mean to insult you. I just always imagined you as having two left feet."

He suddenly dips her low, extending one hand to run down her exposed leg and smirking when she involuntarily shivers at the sultry gesture.

"I'm glad to have exceeded your expectations."

He returns her upright and she lays her head on his chest as they sway from side to side.

"I could spend forever like this."

"We can. We will."

With her head on his chest and his face in her hair, they lose track of time and sway until the sun rises, content in the silence which communicates all they need to know. And with the sun dawning a new day, he hears she say it, ever so softly.

"I love you."

* * *

><p>AN: AWWWW. Reviews are loved.


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